I will be applying to Georgetown next fall, almost certainly to the College, with the intention of majoring in Government or Political Economy or maybe both (or a minor in one or something idk).
However, I’m also very interested in SFS, specifically the IPOL major, but I don’t want to major in just an SFS field because American govt and politics is my main interest, but IPOL is also so cool!! Do you see my dilemma!
My question is - as a student in the College (most likely a gov/PE major) can I minor (or certificate?) in IPOL in SFS? Can I even take SFS classes if I’m in the College? Do people do this?
Sorry if this is confusing, I’m just having trouble figuring all this out. Thanks everyone.
From what I understand, it is harder to do something like this for SFS due to the core requirements. It is supposedly easier in any of the other schools (MSB, NHS, COL) to minor across schools.
Unfortunately, you cannot cross major/minor between the College and the SFS, generally speaking.
Students in the College can get certificates (functional equivalent of a minor) in different world regions or do the Science, Technology, and International Affairs minor (which is specifically directed toward STEM majors) from the SFS.
SFS students are limited to the certificates. While there are a few more certificate options for SFS students, they are generally still internationally focused, on the whole.
However, students in the College can register for most classes in the SFS if available spaces exist, and anyone can register for classes in the College. Some SFS classes may even be cross-listed for majors in the College (this is especially true for the Political Economy major). Just know that students within individual majors will have priority in registering for those classes, so you might have a harder time getting classes when registering across schools.
Not officially, no. Unfortunately the curriculum in the SFS is far more robust than a typical IR major at another school, so it would probably be impossible to do even if it were allowed.
Like I said, you could still theoretically take classes across schools, but College students registering for SFS classes isn’t particularly common.
You should also know that there are classes within the International Relations subfield that are listed within the Government department in the College. For example, even SFS students have to take both GOVT 040 (Comparative Political Systems) and GOVT 060 (International Relations) in the College. Other relevant courses offered this past Spring were GOVT 240 (Politics of Inequality), GOVT 260 (International Security), GOVT 261 (International Political Economy), GOVT 263 (International Law), GOVT 268 (The Middle East in Transition), and GOVT 276 (Human Rights in International Relations).
If you want to look at what courses are offered in any given semester, you can check schedule.georgetown.edu
@rkw0211 that’s more choices than I expected! Although it would be nice to have some kind of official minor, at least there are options. I appreciate the help!
Thank you @SafeFromScience . I actually checked out the course listings a couple days ago and there are tons of great options. For some reason I was under the impression that the major was just American Government. This is exactly what I want.
Right - to be clear, the MAJORITY of SFS coursework actually sits within College departments like Government, Economics, History, Philosophy, Theology, etc. The courses housed in the SFS are generally either area studies or a specifically ‘internationalized’ variant of a topic with an eye toward practice. There’s also a handful of courses that are created by SFS professors who have a particular interest in a topic and the courses get coded INAF (international affairs, i.e., it is in the SFS) because that’s where the professor sits.
I’ve heard it described as “Government IR is like studying economics; SFS IR is like studying business.” It’s a helpful analogy, I think.
Theoretically, you can do almost anything if your Dean will let you. I know a MSB student who is majoring in Computer Science, a Math major in the college who is double majoring in STIA in the SFS, and someone with an International Philosophy major in the SFS. Of course, this is the exception, not the rule, and it doesn’t hurt that all of those people have 3.9+ for GPA’s and are beloved. That being said, government classes and IPOL classes often have a lot of overlap, and you have electives to play with.